A. Barrett - Blackass

Furo knew there was nothing he could say to defuse the situation, and nothing he could do in his broke state, but still he felt compelled to act. He leaned across Syreeta, met the traffic warden’s hostile eyes, and said in a beseeching tone, ‘Excuse me, oga,’ but Syreeta whirled around and shushed him with a curt ‘No.’ He settled back in his seat. Syreeta was handling this all wrong. She should be ingratiating herself to the traffic warden, not provoking the man to arrest her. With her car impounded she would pay a fine many times larger than the bribe that had prompted the traffic warden to pick on her, while he, for all his scheming and exertions, would get nothing except paperwork to fill.

The traffic warden broke the silence. ‘Abeg answer me, madam,’ he said in a voice so rude it could pass for a vulgarity, and Syreeta did, she veered her face around and told the man in haughty tones that she would have his job for the embarrassment he was causing her. Furo rolled his eyes in exasperation at her words. But surely she must know what to do , he thought. Nobody who had been in Lagos more than a few hours could remain ignorant of the survival codes, and yet Syreeta flouted rule after rule. The traffic warden had begun shouting the familiar threat that showed he had reached the end of his routine: he demanded to board the car and lead Syreeta to the nearest LASTMA office. Bureaucratic hellholes, LASTMA offices, and if the traffic warden made good his threat then Syreeta would be lucky to retrieve her car before the month’s end. And only after paying a heavy fine as well as settling the bill for mandatory driving lessons and a psychiatric evaluation, this last a precondition for allowing her back into the madness of Lagos roads. Furo felt he had to warn her, and he opened his mouth to do so, but Syreeta spoke first.

‘Furo, I’m sorry, please get down from the car.’

He tried to catch her eyes. ‘This is not the best way—’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ she cut him off, her right hand cleaving the air in time to her words. ‘I’ll deal with this idiot my own way. Just get down.’

Sighing in resignation, Furo reached for the door handle, and as he flicked it unlocked, the traffic warden released his grip on the steering wheel and sprinted around the car’s front. When the man grabbed the open door and yanked it wider, Furo looked at Syreeta. ‘Should I sit in the back?’ he asked. ‘I don’t mind following you to the LASTMA office.’

‘No need,’ Syreeta said. Then she noticed the anxiety on Furo’s face, and her expression softened, she curved her lips in a smile intended to reassure. ‘Don’t worry, I have this under control.’ She cast a look at the surrounding area, which was crowded with roadside stalls and noisy from all the people milling about, spilling their feelings into the air. ‘But there’s no place for you to wait around here,’ she muttered, as if chiding herself. ‘Oh, I know. Why don’t you walk to VGC? Go inside and wait for me near the gate. I won’t be long.’

Behind Furo the traffic warden snorted with derision, and Syreeta threw him a vicious look. Furo spoke quickly to forestall the attack gathering in her face. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said, and climbed down from the car, then stood watching as the traffic warden jumped in and slammed the door. He heard the harmonised clicks of the car’s central lock, followed by the whirr of Syreeta’s side window closing. When Syreeta and the traffic warden turned on each other with furious faces, Furo spun around and strode away from their muffled yapping.

Avoiding the curious stares of the pedestrians he passed, Furo walked quickly to the filling station, then cut across its concrete expanse and approached the double gates of Victoria Garden City. Two lines of cars flowed through the estate gates, entering and leaving. In front of the entry gate, right beside the sleeping policeman, stood a private guard. Hands clasped behind his back and feet spread apart, he eyeballed each car that clambered over the bump. He raised his head as Furo approached, and his shoulders stiffened, his features hardened into a scowl. Furo realised there was someone walking behind him. A man wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt, his hair cornrowed, a rhinestone stud glinting in one ear. Furo turned back around, and slowed his steps to a shuffle, unsure if he should walk past the guard or state his business. Deciding on the action least likely to cause offence, he halted by the guard and said, ‘Hello.’

‘Good afternoon, sir,’ the guard replied, smiling in welcome. ‘Are you here to visit?’

‘Yes,’ Furo said.

‘I see, I see,’ said the guard, and ran his hands down the front of his epauletted shirt, smoothing it out. He ignored the cars entering the estate; he stared hard at Furo’s nose. ‘Who is the person you want to see?’

‘I don’t know her name … she’s the friend of my friend,’ Furo said. ‘Well, actually—’

‘I see, not a problem,’ the guard interrupted. He threw a suspicious look at the cornrowed man waiting behind Furo. ‘What is her house number?’

‘I don’t know,’ Furo said. ‘The thing is, I’m supposed to—’

‘Not a problem,’ the guard said and wrinkled his brow in contemplation. At that moment the cornrowed man made an impatient noise in his throat, and then he moved forwards, muttered ‘Sorry’ to Furo, and said to the guard, ‘I’m going to Mr Oyegun’s house.’

The guard aimed a furious stare at him. ‘Can’t you see I’m attending to somebody?’

‘I’m in a hurry,’ the cornrowed man said, his voice urgent. ‘Mr Oyegun is expecting me. I know his house, I’ve come here before.’

‘Respect yourself, mister man!’ the guard barked at him. ‘Or you think anyone can just walk in here anyhow? Who are you anyway? Move back, move back — can’t you hear me, I said move back!’ He flapped his hands in the chest of the cornrowed man, drove him back behind Furo. ‘That’s how we Nigerians behave, no respect at all,’ the guard said to Furo with a grimace of apology. Lowering his voice, he asked: ‘Do you have your, erm, friend’s phone number?’

‘I was trying to explain,’ Furo said. ‘I’m supposed to wait for someone to pick me up here. If you don’t mind I’ll just stand in that corner.’ He pointed to a spot inside the gate.

‘I see, I see,’ the guard said, nodding his head as he waved Furo in. ‘Not a problem at all, you can go inside. Should I bring a chair for you?’

‘I’m OK,’ Furo said. He passed through the gate, strode a few paces to the grass shoulder, and turned around to face the gate. The cornrowed man had moved forwards, he was speaking with the guard, who shook his head with vehemence and remained standing in the way. The cornrowed man flung up his hands and uttered a complaint, then reached into his pocket, pulled out his mobile phone, dialled a number. After repeated attempts at reaching someone on the phone, all seemingly unsuccessful, the cornrowed man again spoke to the guard. The guard ignored him, he stood with his chest puffed out and his fists clenched and his boots planted apart, glaring at passing cars. The cornrowed man gave up with a gesture of dismissal. Pocketing his phone, he whirled around and stalked off, and the guard glanced over at Furo. ‘Are you sure you’re OK, sir?’ he shouted across. ‘You’re sure you don’t want a chair?’

Syreeta drove through the gate barely five minutes later. Furo started to raise his hand, but let it fall when he realised she’d already seen him. She pulled up alongside, and he climbed into the Honda’s chill, which was spiced with a whiff of the traffic warden’s sweat. The skin over Syreeta’s cheekbones was stretched tight, a vein beat in her temple, and the car radio was off. Furo knew better than to ask about the traffic warden, how she had got rid of him so quickly. He held his gaze away from her face and stared through the windscreen. Road signs whizzed past. No honking. No hawkers. No litter. No parking. No okadas and danfos. The quiet through which the car sailed was deeper-rooted than the fact of the silent radio. No crowds, no roadside garbage, no traffic jam, no noise. The Lagos he knew was far from this place.